Re: CNVRTTMP.RPGLE has no xml or json -

From: Kevin Bucknum <Kevin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "Web Enabling the IBM i (AS/400 and iSeries)" <web400@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: 11/06/2018 08:31 AM
Subject: Re: [WEB400] CNVRTTMP.RPGLE has no xml or json -
Sent by: "WEB400" <web400-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx>

Soap is a standard. It specifies how you should ask for the data,
and how the data has to look when you return it. It also provides
for discovery services.

Rest is a way of doing things. There isn't a standard. Rest is about
simplifying the process down to basic transactions, and letting you
decide how to request what you want, and how to return it.

IWS is IBM's application server that acts as middleware. It imposes
its own requirements on the process. I haven't ever actually used
IWS for production, but did play around with it a (long) while ago.
At the time as I recall, Soap was the only option, and after playing
around with it, it was overkill for what I needed.

Fundamentally web services are just the process of sending or
requesting data via HTTP. The basic requests that browsers use to
post forms and get data could even be considered Rest. Soap is like
an envelope. You have to address it correctly, you have to put the
stamp in the right place, etc.

Since there is no standard for Rest, there is no requirement that
your Restful web service return XML or JSON. None of mine do. IWS
however forces you to choose to return either JSON or XML. It also
defines how it is going to pass your program (in this case the
program created when you compile the module below and create a
program out of it) the parameters it receives, and how your program
is supposed to return the data. It is built by IBM. They understand
RPGLE. They don't make you do the XML or JSON formatting. They
handle all of that for you and let you use traditional RPGLE parameters.